Star Wars: The Old Republic success questioned by Activision boss

Activision's head honch Bobby Kotick has questioned whether Star Wars: The Old Republic will make enough money to keep going. Speaking to Reuters , Kotick - whose World of Warcraft is massive - said: "If you look at the history of the people investing in an MMO and achieving success, it's a small number."

Kotick also has doubts about how EA are going to pay George Lucas the massive licensing fees for the Star Wars uber-franchise. "Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars," Kotick said. "We've been in business with Lucas for a long time and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don't really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts."

Analysts are predicting that The Old Republic could pull 3 to 4 million World of Warcraft subscribers into the Star Wars universe, so Kotick is understandably looking for holes in the game. But publishers EA and developers BioWare are going to have to ensure there's enough new content to keep players interested once they're over the initial peak. Apparently EA needs at least 500,000 subscribers to make TOR profitable - we doubt they're going to have many problems reaching that number.